Awesome Retro

Trekkies either love or hate the J.J. Abrams-produced “Kelvin Timeline” Star Trek movies. But maybe the haters would like them more if they starred the cast of The Original Series. Well, thanks to Futuring Machine, deepfake tech, and some clever editing, we no longer need to wonder what that might have been like.

AListProductions used footage from 1970s to 1990s DC Comics movies and TV shows to create their vision for what a Justice League movie might have looked like back in the day. It’s certainly looks more entertaining and less morose than Zack Snyder’s version.

Artist Basil Wolverton was known for his amazingly offbeat illustrations that blended science fiction, fantasy, and humor. The books Creeping Death from Neptune and Brain Bats of Venus chronicle his work from 1909 to 1952, during which time his images were published by everyone from Marvel to MAD Magazine.

NoQuarterArcade handbuilds these sweet mid-century modern style arcade tables which play a wide variety of classic arcade games. They come with authentic arcade quality controls for two players, and pre-loaded with a number of games. They sell a 60-in-1 version, as well as a 412-in-1 version, and an 800-in-1 version.

The Martin Scorsese classic Taxi Driver and the TV series Taxi have at least a few things in common: a New York City setting, an ensemble of quirky characters, and… taxi cabs. So it made perfect sense to video editor kingkida to combine the two, giving Robert De Niro a starring role on a 1970s ABC sitcom.

Inspired by legendary daredevil Evel Knievel, comes a remake of one of the most iconic kids toys of the 1970s. The classic wind-up stunt bike set is back in production for a limited time. The new version has an improved gear mechanism so you can send your pint-sized stunt man flying even faster.

Did you know that Warner Bros. made an entire unaired Blazing Saddles TV series just so they could skirt a contract issue with Mel Brooks? Or that the GEICO cavemen had a sitcom? Hats Off Entertainment’s Forgotten Failures is a great series about these and other obscure sequels and reboots.

We love it when a musician manages to replicate the sound of a classic TV theme. One we haven’t heard in ages is the theme from CHiPs. KOSmusic knocked it out of the park with his cover of the season 2 version of the theme, which captures the disco spirit of the 1977 primetime cop drama. His Knight Rider is equally impressive.

Dust off your knowledge of classic music videos with this blast-from-the-past party game. Players face off in a battle of musical knowledge from the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s to collect artist cards from each of the MTV Challenge categories. It’s basically The Blockbuster Game, but with music instead of movies.

This upcoming 8-bit title from GreenBoy Games gives you a new reason to dust off your old Nintendo Game Boy. Where Is My Body? sends a disembodied hand on a quest to find the rest of its body. Gameplay takes inspiration from adventures like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island.

’80s kids, remember when MTV was all about the music videos? An anonymous Internet Archive poster scrounged and cleaning up old VHS and DVD footage from the first hours that MTV broadcast its cable signal starting on August 1, 1981, and kicking things off with The Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star… all in stereo.

While teaching himself 3D computer animation, Mike Booth thought it might be fun to practice some techniques by recreating the opening title sequence from the 1980s animated classic ThunderCats. We think he did quite the admirable job. Check out the side-by-side comparison video here. ThunderCats, roar!

What was once one of the most costly arcade machines is now small enough and cheap enough to have on your desktop. The 6.4″ tall console has a 3.5″ LCD screen, HDMI output, arcade style joystick and buttons, and 40 classic games. Available in Japanese and International versions, as well as three limited edition models.

This bit of archival footage that dates back to 1967 envisions a future much like the one we’re living in today. Its ideas of what shopping from a computer and work-from-home video calls might look like are impressively accurate. We also love the retrofuturist aesthetic.

It’s been some time since we set foot into a video arcade, but back in the day, we pumped more than our share of quarters into arcade machines. Captain Gizmo gathered data on which games raked in the most coin over the years, and it’s amazing how little the rankings changed since the 1980s once you adjust for inflation.

For many of us, working from home means countless videoconferences, with Zoom being the most popular choice for big team meetings. Continuing their Wonders of the World Wide Web series, Squirrel Monkey looks back at what life might have been like if Zoom came out in 1988, and required a special dial-up adapter box to work.

After 8 long months, Chicago remix duo the The Hood Internet has completed their retrospective series, with each of their tracks representing a year from 1979 and 1989, and each brilliantly capturing the best and most memorable music of the era. Enjoy our playlist and let all 11 tracks fill your ears with joy.

The coolest item to come out of the partnership between LEGO and Nintendo (so far) is this brick-built replica of the classic NES game console. The 2646-piece set comes with a retro TV set that displays a level from Super Mario Bros., which actually scrolls when you turn its crank. Drops 8.1.20 on LEGO.com.

This keychain-sized handheld system plays retro gaming emulators. It features a clamshell design that opens up to reveal a 1.54″ LCD screen, and a gamepad style controller. It runs an ARM Cortex-A7 CPU @ 1.2 GHz, and loads games via its SD card slot. It can run ROMs from NES, SNES, SEGA Master System, and even PS1 games.

Also known as “The Death Generator,” this fun website lets you render classic video game screens with your own custom text. There are over 150 game screens to choose from, including Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, The Oregon Trail, and Metroid, many of which offer configurable backgrounds and characters.

The iiRcade is taking a different approach to retro arcade gaming. Rather than coming with just a couple of titles, or using illegal roms, it plays officially-licensed games which can be downloaded for $2.99 – $14.99. It comes preloaded with 10 games, and is available in bartop or cabinet versions. Current games list here.

Back in the 1990s, the way for people to easily build their own websites was with services like GeoCities. But Squirrel Monkey is here to imagine that a graphical web-building tool like Wix was also around to give Yahoo!’s service a run for its money, complete with MIDI sounds, background textures, and “Under Construction” GIFs.

After bringing a distressed, 20-year-old PSone console back to life, Odd Tinkering figured he’d need a controller to go with. Watch as he takes a nasty, yellowed old DualShock controller and miraculously makes it look good as new after a piece-by-piece disassembly, a soap scrub, and a hydrogen peroxide bath under UV light.